“The Unicornis Tale” recounts how, in his youth, a boy named Gundulfus threw a stone and broke a cockerel’s thigh bone. He leaves home to study and returns on the night before he is due to travel to Kent to receive a benefice. His family and friends convince him to stay rather than travel that night, promising that the cock’s crows will wake him in the morning. The cock refuses to crow as an act of revenge and Gundulfus loses his position.

Be kind to animals. Or the unicorn and her friends will smite you.

The Unicornis Tale

Befor this tyme in Kentschire it befellA bonde thar was, his name I can nocht tell;Gundulfus was his sonis name I ges,Of tender age of nyne yeris ald he wes,And wele he usit for to rys at mornysTo kepe the grange and his faderis cornisFra cokis, crawis and uther foulis wyld.So on a day this litill prety childSeand thir birdis lukand our the wall,Toward the grange Gundulfus gois withall,And with the casting of a litill stoneOf ane litill bird the theis boneBrokin he has in sounder at a cast,And sone the fowlis flokit about him fast.Quhat will ye mar? He was bot slane or schent.Sore for him wepit all the hennis of Kent…

K. A. Laity is an all-purpose writer, medievalist, journalist, Fulbrighter, social media maven for Broad Universe, and author of ROOK CHANT: COLLECTED WRITINGS ON WITCHCRAFT & PAGANISM, DREAM BOOK, UNQUIET DREAMS, OWL STRETCHING, CHASTITY FLAME, PELZMANTEL, UNIKIRJA, and many more stories, essays, plays and short humour. Find out more at www.kalaity.com and find her on Facebook or Twitter.